I wanted to open a new thread for the 229th season (2011-2012) at the Mariinsky. It opens later than usual, only the last week in September, and oddly instead of Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet will be the opening ballet, with Tereshkina and Skhlyarov in the leading roles.

Here is an introduction to the current tour of Brazil from the Mariinsky site. There is a picture of the Theatro Municipal in São Paulo, which I thought was the Mariinsky itself (see picture below of Mariinsky) until I noticed the modern building alongside.

"The programme for the tour includes the Mariinsky Theatre’s legendary production of Swan Lake with choreography by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. During the tour, the role of Odette-Odile will be performed by Yekaterina Kondaurova, Anastasia Kolegova, Anastasia Matvienko and Oxana Skorik while the role of Prince Siegfried will be danced by Yevgeny Ivanchenko, Danila Korsuntsev, Denis Matvienko and Maxim Zyuzin."

I'm so glad to see that Anastasia Kolegova will be dancing Odette-Odile. I loved her as the Lilac Fairy at the Mariinsky Festival ! Also great to see Oxana Skorik's name as well as Yekaterina Kondaurova and Anastasia Matvienko's.

The company will be performing for over two weeks, after almost three weeks in London and about a week in New York. I thought August was their vacation month, Catherine. (There are no performances listed for August and the beginning of September in Saint Petersburg.) Besides being 'performing angels' they must be made of iron.

Congratulations to Maxim Zuizin who today (Nov. 4th in St Petersburg) debuted in Leonid Lavrovsky's "Romeo and Juliet" alongside Evgenia Obratsova. I would have loved to have seen this performance and I'm sure it was superb!

Both of her "Giselles" in DC several years ago were among the best performances that I've ever seen.

Just happened to be glancing at the 30 day at home playbill.

I'm delighted to see Alina Somova doing a "Giselle" (Nov. 23) and "The Sleeping Beauty" (Dec. 16). These will showcase her wonderful lyrical ability (with some fine technical stuff thrown in for "The Sleeping Beauty."). They will be a beautiful contrast to her "Rubies" type dancing (Nov. 17) in which she also excels.

Alina Somova remains always on my mind simply because she is one of the most beautiful dancers that I've ever seen as well as one of the most interesting.

Thanks for the post Buddy. I just heard of Daria Pavlenko's Giselle as well, and I could not be happier for her. She has not been given many performances so far this calendar year (I believe less than five at the home theatre) and I know she's looking forward to more stage time, as we're looking forward to seeing her on stage more frequently! (p.s. yesterday was her birthday; it's a nice birthday present!) As an added bonus I note her husband Alexander Sergeyev will be dancing Albrecht -- this is a doubly special treat, I really wish I could attend!

The Lopatkina Giselle is also a surprise -- as many of you know, Lopatkina had danced the role early on in her career and then it left her repertoire for a long period. She returned to it only a few years ago, and I was very impressed with her interpretation of the role. Because it is still rare to see her in the ballet, that performance will be another historical moment.

Skorik continues to receive principal billing, underscoring the theatre's faith and hope in her future. I saw her debut in Swan Lake and I'm sorry I'll miss this Giselle, it will be interesting to see how she copes with the role. I see they've paired her with the same partner as before, Timur Askerov.

Buddy, I share your hope about Veronika visiting during the festival; one can always hope!

The young dancer's pedigree is impressive. He notably won the gold medal at Varna in juniors, the same year (2010) when Sae-Eun Park, now dancing with the Paris Opera won at seniors [women].

Moreover, here they are united together [in a YT video] in Don Quixote (there are other videos of him on YT, rather exciting, such as this Corsaire [Ali] danced at the age of 15 years (!) Before an audience on the edge of a trance:)"

copying Cygne's post here as well: "Evgenia Obraztsova will dance Princess Aurora at the Bolshoi Theatre on 12, January 2012. This will be her first performance in the restored Theatre, and she will be the first active Mariinsky ballerina to perform in the newly refurbished opera house.http://www.bolshoi.ru/performances/442/ ... 0112190000 "

"Evgenia Obraztsova will dance Princess Aurora at the Bolshoi Theatre on 12, January 2012..."

Thanks for this wonderful news--too bad it won't be shown in the Ballet in Cinema series.

On a different subject, the following excerpt from an end-of-year review by Gia Kourlas in The New York Times, 18 December 2011, is mostly for Buddy:

“The summer brought two visiting ballet companies to Lincoln Center and with them the brilliance of Alban Lendorf of the Royal Danish Ballet and the welcome return of Alina Somova of the Mariinsky Ballet. The ravishing Ms. Somova, who sparkled as the Czar Maiden in Alexei Ratmansky’s “Little Humpbacked Horse,” also performed the first movement of Balanchine’s “Symphony in C” with such charm and amplitude that I’ll never forget it.”

Perhaps she missed Obraztsova as the Czar Maiden (I missed Somova). But the Mariinsky did conquer New York this summer in the Little Humpbacked Horse. (And Kourlas enjoys disagreeing with Alastair Macaulay, her colleague at the Times).

Alina Somova is one dancer that I would travel just to see and in fact have done so. I truly look forward to seeing her as much as possible this season. I think that she has an amazingly wonderful future in dance still ahead.

I also share yours and Catherine's enthusiasm for Evgenia Obraztsova and greatly look forward to seeing her as much as possible next year. She did some *Amazing!* stuff in London as well as exceptional performing elsewhere this year. I've always thought that she is a wonderfully beautiful and expressive dancer, but if she can carry on like she did in London she could also be a bombshell of unexpected surprises. She was a fireworks of physically brilliant expression in Jerome Robbins' "In The Night."

Thanks, Buddy, for the link to Gia Kourlas’s interview with Alina. She is compltely charming here, and on camera in Ballerina (though I’m assuming her words were translated into very idiomatic English for the Time Out New York interview). Is it hard to believe that she didn’t know about her promotion until her sister saw it by accident on the company website—or is that just the way things are done at the Mariinsky?

I’m surprised you didn’t get to New York for the Lincoln Center Festival this summer—you travel so widely for ballet. Pictues of Alina were prominently displayed aound Lincoln Center this summer—she looked like the face of the company. (I have secretly wished that Obraztsova would “defect” to ABT or, better yet, the San Francisco Ballet, but that’s pure fantasy. But I’m happy about her increasing guest appearances, most recently at the historic Bolshoi. Maria Kochetkova, the Bolshoi-trained star of the the San Francisco Ballet has said her dream is to dance at the historic Mariinsky).

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